After their Week 3 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, which members of the Minnesota Vikings are receiving more blame than they should?
We are through Week 3 of the 2023 NFL season and have now seen the Minnesota Vikings lose all three of their games.
It has been a rough start for the Vikings, to say the least, but with every loss being in a one-score game, it makes things even harder to swallow.
Minnesota's next matchup comes against the 0-3 Carolina Panthers, giving slight hope that maybe things will turn around in Week 4.
There is a lot of blame to go around for Minnesota's 0-3 start to the season, and nobody on the team is exempt. With that being said, there are specific members of the Vikings who are getting more blame than they should for the team's recent loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
So who are the three biggest Vikings scapegoats from their Week 3 loss to Los Angeles?
Viking No. 1
Kirk Cousins - QB
Kirk Cousins is a mainstay on the scapegoats list. He's a Vikings fan's favorite quarterback to hate, but Cousins is arguably playing the best he has in his career and getting little help in return.
While in years past, it was viable to put large amounts of blame on his shoulders, this year has been much different.
The biggest knock on Cousins this week is that he didn't spike the ball as the clock ticked down in the fourth quarter, and that is a fair knock on him. Then, as time continued to tick down, he rifled in a pass to T.J. Hockenson that was tipped and subsequently intercepted, ending the game as Vikings fans couldn't understand the process that just unfolded.
Should Cousins have spiked the ball? Absolutely. But when you see the replay of his pass to Hockenson, it shows that Minnesota's big-dollar tight end just couldn't catch the ball, leading to it popping up and getting picked off. That part is not to blame on Cousins.
Maybe Minnesota could have run a better play than what they ran on the fateful game sealer; we'll never know. Cousins rightfully deserves some blame for not taking charge and spiking the ball to set the offense better, but his interception was a pass that Hockenson needed to come down with.